What question did this study set out to answer?

To analyze the significance of Penelope's weaving in understanding a patient’s psychological struggles with maternal identification and depression.

April 11, 2026

Oedipus and Odysseus: A clinical exploration of mythical Penelope’s weaving as illustrative of André Green’s Dead Mother complex

Key Points

To analyze the significance of Penelope's weaving in understanding a patient’s psychological struggles with maternal identification and depression.
Clinical exploration of a single patient named Julia.
Examined the symbolism of Penelope's weaving and unweaving in relation to maternal depression.
Referenced André Green's concept of the Dead Mother as a framework for understanding the patient's dynamics.
Penelope's weaving represented Julia's struggle with a depressed maternal figure.
Julia's movements between identification with a deadened mother to a hopeful recovery were noted in therapy.
The framework of psychic dynamics was elaborated through mythological references, specifically to Odysseus and Telemachus.

Abstract

At a difficult point in her analysis, my patient Julia invoked Penelope's weaving and unweaving as she awaited her husband Odysseus' return. In this paper I discuss how the repetition compulsion, encapsulated in the weaving and unweaving, illustrated Julia's identification with a deadened, depressed mother, very like the Dead Mother that Green (Green, A. 1986. "The Dead Mother." In On Private Madness. London: Karnac Books) describes. The evocation of Penelope highlights the painful dilemma of the child, whose love feels, according to Green, to be mortgaged to the mother's depression. In the detail of the clinical situation, I consider the movement Julia could essay from the identification with the depressed, grief-stricken mother/Penelope in one session, to the recovery of a more benign parental couple, something more alive and libidinally connected, in a later session. I draw on Kohut's idea of the "semi-circle of mental health" (Kohut, H. 1982. "Introspection, Empathy and the Semi Circle of Mental Health." The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 63:395-407) described in the myth as Odysseus' protective paternal presence in his son Telemachus' early life. Following Freud's lead of using Greek myths to articulate internal psychic dynamics, specifically his use of the myths of Narcissus and Oedipus, I draw on the story of Odysseus to elaborate the clinical manifestations of Julia's psychic predicament.

Mark Helpful

Bookmark

Relay